October 14, 2025 • 51 mins
History often forgets the women who risked everything in World War II. Journalist Michelle Young makes sure that doesn’t happen with her powerful book, The Art Spy: The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WWII Resistance Hero Rose Valland. Rose was a quiet Paris museum curator who secretly spied on the Nazis as they looted thousands of masterpieces for Hitler’s super-museum. With courage, cunning, and relentless determination, she curated the stolen art and passed intelligence to the Resistance. She safeguarded Europe’s treasures and stood her ground during the liberation of Paris. Her work is still being used today to recover Europe’s stolen art. Join Shelley Johnson and Kathy Tuccaro for this riveting conversation on Women Road Warriors as they talk to Michelle and delve into Rose’s bravery, the fight to protect culture, and why Rose Valland’s story matters now more than ever.
https://michelleyoungwriter.com/
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#ArtSpy #ArtTheft #RoseValland #MichelleYoung #Nazis #Europe #ShelleyJohnson #ShelleyMJohnson #KathyTuccaro #WomenRoadWarriors #Women World War II resistance, Rose Vallon, art theft, cultural preservation, women's history, inspiring women's stories, Michelle Young, art historians, female curators, espionage in art, Nazi occupation Paris, women's roles in history, resistance fighters, art recovery efforts, untold stories of women, historical fiction, women's contributions to war, stories of bravery
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(00:02):
This is Women Road warriorswith Shelly Johnson and Kathy Tucaro.
From the corporate office tothe cab of a truck, they're here
to inspire and empower womenin all professions.
So gear down, sit back and enjoy.
(00:24):
Welcome.
We're an award winning showdedicated to empowering women in
every profession throughinspiring stories and expert insights.
No topics off limits on ourshow, we power women on the road
to success with expert andcelebrity interviews and information
you need.
I'm Shelley.
And I'm Kathy.
(00:44):
There are so many unsungheroes from World War II, and the
roles women had are oftendownplayed or simply forgotten.
Award winning journalistMichelle Young was not about to let
that happen.
With a key hero named RoseVallon, she's documented her major
efforts in her book the Artthe Extraordinary Untold tale of
(01:05):
World War II resistance heroRose Velon the Art Spy tells the
astonishing true story ofRose, a quiet Paris museum curator
who became an unlikely WorldWar II resistance heroine.
While the Nazis used hermuseum, the Jeu de Paume, as their
headquarters for art theft,Rose secretly spied on them, risking
her life to record details ofthousands of stolen works bound for
(01:29):
Hitler's planned super museum,the Fuhrer Museum.
Armed with bravery,intelligence, and sheer determination,
Rose passed criticalinformation to the Resistance, helped
safeguard Europe's culturaltreasures, and even stood her ground
during the liberation of Paris.
Her story, long overlooked,finally gets sweeping exposure it
deserves in Michel's book.
(01:50):
Publishers Weekly said intheir review that readers will relish
this riveting tale of a cleverwar hero playing the long game against
bumbling fascists.
Michelle's work is nothingshort of compelling.
She's a graduate of HarvardCollege in the history of art and
architecture and holds amaster's from Columbia University's
Graduate School ofArchitecture, Planning and Preservation,
(02:12):
where she's also a professorof architecture.
Her work has appeared in theWall Street Journal, the Guardian,
and the Forward, among others.
She's the founder of thepublication Untapped New York.
Kathy and I were captivated,so we invited Michelle on the show.
Welcome, Michelle.
Thank you for being with us.
Thanks so much for having meon your show.
(02:33):
We are so honored, Michelle.
Your book is not only awonderful tribute to Rose, but a
riveting tale of espionage andintrigue that brings Rose to life.
For readers, her sacrificesand risks were crucial in saving
and recovering much ofEurope's stolen art.
It's still helping in recoveryefforts today.
(02:53):
I understand many of hercontributions were largely forgotten.
What motivated you to writeabout her?
Well, no exaggeration to saythat I was reading pretty much exclusively
World War II books because inmy real job, the day job, I was writing
and researching about New York City.
It's architecture, urbanplanning, school.
(03:14):
So I really wanted to dosomething that, you know, wasn't
triggering, that would piquemy interest.
And my family's history isrooted in World War II.
My grandfather survived theatomic bomb in Hiroshima as a Taiwanese
student.
And then I married someone French.
So I started digging intoWorld War II European history as
(03:34):
well and came across her storyand like many other female stories,
as you mentioned, wasastounded that there was not much
about her out there at all andno full length English book in the.
In the trade press about herin America.
Wow.
And she played such a vitalrole and still does long after her
(03:55):
death.
I was reading that sheremained under recognized for decades,
overshadowed by the mostlymale monuments men.
That's correct.
I mean, I think that's thestory of women in World War II in
general, and the fact that alot of people are interested in the
warfare, the battles, andthat's the general dominant narrative
about World War II.
(04:15):
But behind the scenes, a lotof the people who enabled those battles
to happen and the war to befought on so many fronts were women.
She was so brave, and I'm surethis is not something she ever anticipated
doing in her life.
You go into her early life aswell as some of her personal life
(04:36):
and all of that.
She took such big risks.
She was in serious danger ineverything she was doing.
Could you give a summary orsynopsis of who Rose was and how
all of this began?
Yes.
So her early life.
She is born in 1898 in a verysmall countryside village southeast
of Lyon, about 40 miles.
(04:57):
It's a very sheltered,conservative religious area.
But she displays very earlytalents in the arts and in her studies.
And her mother, unlike a lotof other women of this generation,
was really fought to have her educated.
So applied for scholarshipsfor her to go to better and better
schools.
(05:17):
She makes her way up, winsmany awards, and after kind of being
at the top schools in theregion, ends up at the Ecole du Beaux
Arts in Paris, where all themajor artists have studied.
And she not only does that,but she gets what's the equivalent
of multiple graduate degreesat the same time at the Ecole du
(05:37):
Louvre, at the Sorbonne andother schools.
So I say that she was aroaring twenties overachiever, and
there was very few, if not anyfemale art historians more educated
than she was.
But she has a hard timefinding a job after her education.
This is due to her class andother factors.
(05:59):
She has a nemesis that sheencounters who finds her too modern.
He, unfortunately, is head ofthe Louvre and head of her school,
where she's writing herthesis, the Ecole du Louvre.
And so she takes an unpaidsecretarial job at the museum, which
is a modern art museum next tothe Louvre.
It's part of the Frenchnational museums, but not extremely
(06:23):
prestigious in terms of a workplace.
But she takes this unpaid job,fights to become an unpaid curatorial
member.
That takes her four years.
And at that point, a few yearslater is when World War II breaks
out.
And she's an integral part tothe protection of art In World War
(06:44):
II, the movement of art fromthe museums to the Loire Valley out
of harm's way.
And then in the end of 1940,the Nazis have requisitioned the
museum.
She's in the Jutpomme fortheir own uses, to transit looted
art through, to document,move, and then eventually ship out
(07:06):
of France.
Wow.
Wow.
That's all.
I gotta say, all she lay.
She was seriously brave.
I mean, obviously she wasfighting sexism as well as the terrible
Nazis who were processingstolen art, requisitioning it to
take it to this super museumthat Hitler wanted, which was a terrible,
(07:27):
terrible thing.
I mean, this had to put her ina very precarious spot.
And of course, then she becamepart of the French Resistance, which
I don't imagine she ever sawin her future.
No, I don't think so.
But in many ways, I think herwhole life experience really prepared
her for that.
She had been used to beingunder the radar, concealing her where
(07:48):
she came from.
One of the really tellingthings was when I heard one of the
rare interviews she did thatwe have in audio.
And my husband said, rightaway, she talks exactly like my grandfather.
And his grandfather was very,very high up in the civil service
and also served in World War II.
And there was a way ofspeaking that indicated in France
that you were educated.
(08:08):
And even though she doesn'tcome from this world, she learned
to play that part.
And that is exactly what shepulled from when she was a Resistance
spy in the museum at great danger.
And I think you asked before,kind of what.
How in harm's way was she?
And so to give some color onthat, every day she was working right
under the noses of some of themost powerful Nazis in Paris.
(08:31):
They were sent there, but alsohaving a grand time, stealing everything
they could.
They were stealing for theThird Reich, but then also stealing
for themselves.
And her job initially was justto figure out what's going on in
this museum, who are the key players?
And you can see in her notes,she's listening phonetically to the
German.
She has a secret superpower inthat her partner, a woman named Joyce
(08:54):
here, whom she ends up beingwith for her whole life, 50 years,
is actually half German.
This woman grew up in,partially in Britain, where she was
born and in Germany, and hashelped Rose learn German.
And then over time, she'sstealing documents, whether they're
(09:14):
papers thrown out in the wastebasket or the negatives of photographs
that they've taken of the art.
And, you know, because they'reNazis out of central casting, they're
also taking what we would callselfies today and posing in front
of stolen art and stuff.
So she ends up having thisamazing record of everything that's
(09:36):
gone on, the art that'sstolen, and who these people are,
their names and their photographs.
And that's eventually what shepasses on to the Monuments Men, or
what we called a MonumentsMen, and becomes a Monuments Officer
herself after the war.
Wow.
All I can say is bravo to her.
Yes.
Yeah.
When I read these books, Ioften think, what would I have done?
(09:57):
And that's really whatmotivates me because I think, again,
we can imagine what we might do.
But here's what someone reallydecided, and it's always very inspiring.
In the end, I realized that Iwould be no good spy.
I don't have the poker facefor it.
But Rose really did.
And you can see that from theway she writes and how other people
talk about her.
She wasn't always the person,the people pleasing room person.
(10:19):
Sorry, in the room at all.
And it's interesting becauseshe was not trained to be this.
So she had to kind of play itby ear, if you will, and learn to
be very, very secretive andobservant and of course, not be a
threat, because obviously, I'msure that the Nazis were constantly
looking.
The amount of stress thiswoman had to have every single day,
(10:42):
every single minute of theday, going to work.
Imagine.
Yeah.
And then adding to that, shelived with her partner Joyce here,
who was.
That was very taboo at the time.
It was criminalized underVichy France, Correct?
That's correct.
And also under German law,heterosexuality was.
Was legal really, just for men.
(11:03):
But they harassed lesbiancommunities all the time.
So this wouldn't have beensomething she would want out in the
public.
And she didn't even want itwhen France wasn't occupied.
She kept that a secret becausethrough the 1930s, when they were
living together.
And so one of the moststriking things that I discovered
was when the Nazis took overher museum.
(11:24):
Just a month later, Joyce isactually arrested by the Germans
with the help of the Frenchpolice and interned in the east of
France.
And Rose has no idea where she is.
Joyce worked for the US Embassy.
They also had no idea whereshe was.
So one can imagine very easilythat stress that you're describing.
(11:45):
So not just being a spy andcould be caught any time, but not
knowing where the love of yourlife is.
Yes.
Well, wasn't here consideredan enemy alien?
Yeah, that's correct.
And this is one of the realuntold stories of World War II that
I discovered is all theBritish and anyone who was part of
the Allied nationality wasconsidered an enemy alien under occupied
(12:11):
French, occupied France.
And so they were allowed tostay and were termed.
They were on parole.
And so they had to go to theKalman d' Autour every day and sign
their name and give their address.
And so this is exactly how theGermans knew where they were when
(12:34):
they decided it's time toround them up and imprison them.
And so they went door to doorstarting at 5:30 in the morning,
knocking and shiningflashlights in their faces.
So Joyce was living with Roseat this time.
And so they would have.
They would have been joltedfrom their sleep and she would have
been taken.
Oh, God.
(12:54):
And how long did Rose endureall of that?
How many years?
So she was undercover foralmost four years.
Wow, that would be a lifetimewith that kind of stress.
You know, as an author myself,and I could just almost feel the
(13:14):
energy in you as you'rediscovering this and just wanting
to write about it.
Oh my God.
How come this hasn't beenwritten about before?
And it's so enthralling.
Yeah, I.
Yes, that's exactly what I felt.
And I had a hunch, maybe as awoman of the same sex as Rose, but,
you know, just knowing that, Ibet her story is even crazier.
(13:37):
That was just my feeling.
And that's why I focused thisbook primarily only on the five years
of World War II in Europe andthe time that she was in the war.
And I went into it hoping Iwould find enough, kind of believing
that I would.
And I did.
In the end, I filled in thoseholes in her timeline, figured out
(13:58):
what happened to her, forexample, when the Germans arrived
in Paris at the gates, andwhat happened to her.
It was a harrowing journey ofher escape out of Paris during that
time.
And hopefully, hopefully I'vebrought her to life and really given
her the due that she's been owed.
(14:20):
Stay tuned for more of WomenRoad warriors coming up.
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(15:28):
Welcome back to Women Roadwarriors with Shelly Johnson and
Kathy Tucaro.
If you're enjoying thisinformative episode of Women Road
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We feature a lot of expertinterviews, plus we feature celebrities
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We want to help as many womenas possible.
You know, history books oftengloss over the quiet heroes, especially
the women who shaped thecourse of World War II.
Award winning journalistMichelle Young has made sure one
(16:31):
of those stories won't be forgotten.
Her book, the Art theExtraordinary Untold Tale of World
War II resistance hero RoseVallon uncovers the astonishing true
tale of Rose, a seeminglyunassuming curator at the Jeu de
Pompe Museum in Paris.
When the Nazis turned hermuseum into a headquarters for art
(16:51):
theft, she risked everythingsecretly spying, she recorded the
details of thousands of stolenmasterpieces bound for Hitler's planned
Fuhrer Museum.
With intelligence, bravery andsheer determination, she passed priceless
information to the Resistance,safeguarded Europe's cultural treasures,
and even stood her groundduring the liberation of Paris.
(17:13):
Her work is still uncoveringartwork today.
Publishers Weekly callsMichelle's book a riveting tale of
a clever war hero playing thelong game against bumbling fascists.
Michelle, besides thecompelling storyline, you really
do bring Rose and history to life.
When we read about history, wedon't really know about the people.
(17:35):
We know their names, we knowthe dates.
But what makes it interestingis these are people and you can actually
delve into their lives and yougive the readers the ability to actually
step into Rose's life andreally feel the fear and really see
the challenges that she hadand how she evolved as a protagonist.
(17:58):
She was a very innovative woman.
She's really amazing.
Yeah, I think she was for sure brilliant.
And even the way she processedinformation was amazing to me.
Right.
Because she's just like takingall these notes, but she's not even
doing it in the museum becauseshe's prevented from taking notes.
But conveniently, her othersuperpower is that she has near photographic
(18:19):
memory.
Wow.
So these aren't just like, oh,a random name.
It's who the.
What addresses have this, hasthis art been stolen from?
Who does it belong to?
What are the shippingmanifests, the numbers of the train
cars that these.
This art is going to.
She's doing that all at home.
And then occasionally if she'sable to steal some documents that.
(18:40):
That can enable her.
So I really, I describe her ashaving a brain like a computer because
she kept all of that organizedin her head and then.
And that's amazing.
Yeah, that's incredible.
Oh, and especially under thatkind of pressure to remember all
of that and to catalog it inyour head.
(19:01):
Oh, my goodness.
Yeah.
There was just, I think, twomoments in the book where I allowed
some modern day terminology toseep into the book, which I try not
to, because you want to beimmersed and you want to be with
Rose.
It's a narrative nonfiction,so must read like a thriller and
everything is true.
But.
But there were two phrases.
So one was describing her as aoverachiever because I think that's
(19:24):
really what described hereducation when I looked at it.
And then in this aspect of herbrain, I described it as like a computer
because I really wantedreaders to understand the extent
of which she was so unique andso brilliant.
How involved is it to be a curator?
I would think that the detailsare just overwhelming.
(19:46):
And she's storing all of thisin her head, trying to figure out
where all of the artwork went.
It's great that you bring thatup, because there was a line in one
of her.
Either one of her letters orher memoir where she said, basically,
in the war, I did what I wastrained to do, to make lists, lists,
lists and lists.
And of course, she had moreskills beyond that.
(20:08):
But she was such anaccomplished academic curator.
And in terms of the things shewould be doing would be looking for
new art to acquire, figuringout how to hang them in the museum,
what should be on thepermanent display, what should not
be, and making lists toprepare for war, and then also writing
(20:31):
up exhibition catalogs, thegeneral catalog of the whole collection
of the museum.
So a real varied job description.
And then what kind of made herunder the radar for the Germans was
they thought that she was justpretty much like a custodian because
she also knew how the buildingworked, how the fire system works,
(20:51):
how the electrical systemworks, and she was liaisoning with
the French guards that alreadyworked there.
And so they kind of dismissedher as this lowly custodian secretary.
And then, of course, sheunderplayed what she knew.
So do you think that being awoman was an advantage at that point
(21:14):
because she was more easily dismissed?
Yes.
So throughout World War II,women were always overlooked, and
they couldn't really believethat they would be doing something,
you know, against the regimeor anything.
But she was particularly underoverlooked because there were other
women in the museum.
They were all either Germanart historians that were sent there
(21:35):
to catalog all the stolen art,or they were German secretaries.
And these were very prepped,primped women.
There was a lot of intrigueand affairs going on between the
German art historians and theGerman secretaries.
And she was very plain.
She was never reallyinterested in wearing dresses and
dressing up, which was acontrast to her partner, Joyce, who
(21:58):
was drop dead gorgeous, reallylooked like a movie star.
So we know that it wasn't thatRose didn't have the ability to dress
up.
It just wasn't in her personality.
So as a result, the Germansreally overlooked her.
There were too many otherwomen simpering around.
There was an example of onewoman who actually walked around
the museum in her nightgown.
So there was a lot to bedistracted by.
(22:20):
Wow.
That'S really funny.
I sure hope they make a movieout of this.
All right.
I know this would befascinating and it's educational.
It brings history to life.
And people really need to knowhow many people played a role in
defeating the Nazis and someof the terrible.
(22:40):
Well, we already know theterrible things they did.
But the way they impacted theart world, it was a travesty what
they did in terms of art.
What are some of the famous pieces?
I mean, they really abscondedwith some phenomenal historical works
of art.
What are some of the piecesthat the Nazis ran off with?
(23:01):
Yeah, so the Nazis wereprimarily interested in what we called
the old masters, so painterslike Vermeer and Rembrandt and Hans
Holbein, because that's theart that Hitler understood.
And it also fell under thekind of general term as being Germanic
in origin.
And so they were avidlycollecting this.
But when they looted artcollections and they came into France
(23:22):
with already a list ofeverything they wanted to steal,
including the 15 major artgalleries, which were predominantly
owned by.
By Jewish gallery owners.
And so when they would.
They took commando units andreally liquidated all these art galleries
wholesale, so they would comeback with the kind of art that Hitler
wanted, but also art that theydidn't really know what to do with.
(23:44):
That was modern art, likePicasso's, Matisse and Braque.
And so those kind of gotseparated, and usually the art that
would move out of France andbe exported back to Germany would
be those old masters paintings.
So I'll give you paintingnumber one that they were looking
for was called the Astronomerby Vermeer, and it had been part
(24:07):
of the Rothschild family, theFrench Rothschild family, for centuries.
And so this was number one ontheir list.
And the very eerie thing iswhen you look at the German documents
that were made in this museum,it is labeled R1 Rothschild 1, the
first painting to come throughthe Jeut Pon Museum to be cataloged.
(24:28):
And so that was the big one,but there was really paintings by
anyone, you know, Van Gogh,Monet, all that stuff was coming
through.
And then between kind of theVan Gogh, Monet era and the modern
art of that time period, whichincludes the Picassos and Leger and
Braques and Matisse, thosethey were trying to figure out what
(24:50):
to do with.
And so they ended up, youknow, selling a lot, exchanging a
lot, burning a lot.
And Rose witnesses The burningof 500 of these modern paintings
in the courtyard of the museumin July 1943.
That had to break her heart.
Yeah.
When you think of the loss ofall of that, I mean, the brilliance
(25:11):
that just went up in smoke.
Yeah, she found all of thisvery painful.
You know, I think that she wasmotivated not because she just loved
kind of art itself, but whatit represented for the culture of
France and also for her.
It was her ticket out of whereshe came from so beauty to her was
(25:35):
kind of paramount.
And she writes in the openingof her memoir that she did this to
save a little of the beauty ofthe world.
So you're right, this was anextremely painful moment for her
to witness, to document.
And it really defined a greatpart of the rest of her life, because
when she wrote about thisafter the war, it was kind of immediately
(25:58):
questioned.
And that has entered into kindof present day discussion about Rose
Vallon.
So I knew if I wanted to tellthis story from her perspective,
I would need to know whetherthis was true or not and definitively
true or not.
And so over the course of thefour years I worked on this book,
I hoped I would find some documents.
A smoking gun, right?
(26:19):
And one day I found in theback of a box in the diplomatic archives
in France, four notarized,handwritten, signed documents by
the guards who worked in the museums.
And in great, great detail,not just this event happened, and
I signed my name, but down toI was ordered by the German guards
to light the bonfire.
Incredible detail that endedup, you know, informing that chapter
(26:41):
of the book.
But the thing I was mostgratified about was to be able to
correct the record ofsomething she felt so strongly about.
I read so many letters of hertrying to ask people if they had
documents, evidence, thingsshe could use to prove this was,
this event was true.
Bravo to you for finding it.
Yes.
So kidding.
(27:01):
You gave her the credit thatshe deserved and reinstated her credibility.
Yes, yes.
You know, it always shocked methat we trust her for all these things.
Like if you have a paintingthat needs to be restituted, and
whether it's being sold atChristie's or wherever the provenance
researchers go to France toconsult her documents.
(27:24):
And oftentimes Rose'sdocuments are the only proof that
exists that an art was lootedby the Nazis.
So, you know, her documentsunderscore deals that are hundreds
of millions of dollars today.
And why is this questioned?
And you know, the questionalso in my mind, if a man had said
this, would it have been questioned?
And one of the amazing things,when I went back to check, okay,
(27:47):
where does this doubt come from?
Because that's reallyimportant when you're researching
things.
Try to trace back where a mythor a conspiracy theory or a falsehood
comes from.
You gotta go to the beginning.
And what I realized was thatit was the men who, the Nazis in
the museum who came out to aGerman newspaper in the 1960s to
say what Rose is saying is false.
(28:08):
There was not.
There was no fire.
And then they add, of course,if it did happen, it was Rose who
did it.
So it's, it's classic.
It's.
It's deny, deflect.
Yeah.
And so.
And I think you can do that tomarginalized communities of people
more easily than someonethat's in the.
In the dominant narrative.
Very, very true.
(28:31):
Stay tuned for more of WomenRoad warriors coming up.
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I have one question for you.
Do you want to stop worryingabout the irs?
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I've helped countless peopleacross the country, and my success
rate speaks for itself.
(28:52):
So now you know where to findgood, honest help with your tax problems.
What are you waiting for?
If you owe more than $10,000to the IRS or haven't filed in years,
call me now at 888-557-4020 orgo to mytaxhelpmd.com for a free
consultation.
And get your life back.
Welcome back to Women Roadwarriors with Shelly Johnson and
(29:16):
Kathy Tucaro.
History often overlooks thewomen who changed its course, but
journalist Michelle Youngrefuses to let that happen.
In her new book, the Art theExtraordinary Untold Tale of World
War II resistance hero RoseVallon, she reveals how one quiet
(29:37):
Paris museum curator became aforce of defiance against the Nazis
when Hitler's armycommandeered the Jeu de Paul Museum
as their headquarters for art theft.
Rose was right there,watching, listening, and recording
every detail.
Day after day.
She risked her life to keeptrack of thousands of masterpieces.
(29:57):
What seemed like routine noteswere actually lifelines of intelligence
that she funneled to theFrench Resistance.
Her courage safeguardedpriceless cultural treasures and
helped preserve Europe's heritage.
And when Paris was finallyliberated, Rose didn't step aside.
She stood firm to ensurestolen art could be reclaimed.
Michel's book is trulyincredible and a wonderful tribute
(30:21):
to Rose, Michel.
Rose went through so much inthe liberation of Paris.
She also learned the Nazis hadorders to neutralize the museum and
make her disappear.
Yes, that had to have beenabsolutely terrifying.
I mean, she'd been through allof this, and then she was facing
that, too.
Yes, you're right.
And these words aretranslations of what she said and
(30:45):
what she learned.
So, yes, the orders toneutralize the museum and use it
as a defense against all theheadquarters of the Germans, which
were holed up in the hotelsalong the Rue de Rivoli next to the
Louvre.
So her museum was in theTuileries, across from the German
commander of Paris.
(31:05):
So basically, it was said, ifpush comes to shove, you can destroy
this museum as a means toprotect everyone else behind it.
And at the same time, thepeople, the Germans working in her
museum, begin to suspect hernear the end.
And they've decided that,regardless, even if she's a spy or
not, she knows too muchbecause she was here the whole time.
(31:27):
And so one Nazi named Kurt vonBaer gives an order to ideally bring
her to the border, cross theborder, and then liquidate her.
That's the term that was used.
So she doesn't know about thisorder until after the war.
It comes out in a war tribunalagainst the men in the museum.
(31:48):
But it's, of course, harrowingto just be in the final battle.
She's actually there with allthe soldiers fighting.
She's in this museum duringthose last days.
And then not only does shesurvive that, then she becomes a
suspect for collaboration asParis is being liberated and the
mob breaks into her museum,breaks the windows, breaks the locks,
(32:11):
and she's put at gunpoint.
And I won't give away whathappens, but, you know, it's like
at kind of every turn of thewar, she's in extremely precarious
conditions and situations.
Unbelievable.
Yeah.
Yeah.
She probably never felt safe.
Not that anyone did with theNazi occupations, but, I mean, she
was right in the thick of it.
(32:32):
Yeah.
And I think it's sointeresting that our common conception
of a spy is someone in thefield probably blowing up trains.
And it's arguably, of course,very dangerous, but I think it's
equally dangerous to have beenworking undercover under the nose
of these Nazis every day ofthe war.
(32:53):
And you're right, the.
The pressure and stress thatwas under.
And one of the most tellingthings I found was an interview that
she did actually with Ellemagazine around the time that a book.
Sorry, a movie came out basedon a chapter for book about the last
train of art she was trying tostop from leaving France.
There are a thousand paintingson it.
(33:13):
And she's interviewed on theset of this movie called the Train
by Burt Lancaster.
And they film it inside theJutpo museum.
So the museum that she hadworked for, that she was spying inside,
and they've made it look likeit was during the war.
And there are German soldiers.
Obviously, these are actors,but they're wearing the uniforms.
(33:36):
They have the black boots andthe guns.
They're cocking their guns.
And for the first time, shekind of loses it.
And she.
She kind of.
She flees the museum, and shecomes back the next day to talk to
the Journalist and says, I,who am normally so calm, I don't
know what happened.
I couldn't even find themetro, the subway.
(34:00):
And that was 20 years after.
So she had kept that with heruntil that moment when she was confronted
with it to her face for thefirst time again.
Wow.
Well, her work was invaluable.
She certainly passed all ofthis information onto the French
(34:20):
Resistance at great risk to herself.
And her meticulous records arestill being used today and recovering
art that's still missing.
Am I correct?
That's right, yes.
So it's estimated about ahundred thousand works of art are
still missing.
The Nazis took about 650,000works of art.
That's of what we know.
(34:41):
Crazy.
I know.
It was a real militaryoperation all the time.
And that's what we know andthat's what they documented and what
we were able to figure out.
So undoubtedly much more than that.
And so looted art is coming tolight all the time.
And the laws in Europe weresuch that for the post war period,
(35:03):
if something was in yourpossession for 30 years and you could
prove that you had got it kindof, you had clean hands.
So it was pretty easy to kindof fudge that you gave it to somebody
else for safekeeping or such,it was now that person's.
And so that's why you see alot of looted art emerge in the 70s
(35:24):
and get bought.
Before we had more stringentpolicies about the sale of looted
art.
It's still probably not strong enough.
But now since the 90s, therehave been at least frameworks developed
between nations about how todeal with it.
And so 70s, they get sold,they disappear for another generation.
(35:45):
And now they're coming tolight again.
And I don't know if you sawthe news, but a woman in Argentina
put her house up for sale andin one of the photographs was a painting
that was looted in World War II.
And it created like aninternational scandal and story that
people have been riveted and following.
And that's again because thenext generation is starting to get
(36:06):
older and selling their property.
So we will be seeing a lotmore looted art come to market or
be discovered.
Wow.
Yeah.
And that's where Rosie's workis that much more valuable because
we need to have that record.
She is saving history in somany ways.
She made history, she's saving history.
(36:28):
It was just a travesty whatthe Nazis did all the way across
the board.
And I can only imagine yousaid way over 100,000 works of art
that are still missing.
It could be anywhere yes, yes.
I mean, there are a lot likeclean Swiss bank vaults.
One of the men, the Nazis whoworked in the museum with Rose Bruno
(36:51):
lose a real nemesis of hers.
She's the, he's the one thatwas on trial in France after the
war and she actually served ashis interrogating witness, which
is again, yet another accoladefor Rosevello.
And when he died, they foundall sorts of looted art and impressionist
(37:12):
paintings in his, in his bankvault in Switzerland.
And he had said to his deaththat he didn't steal anything.
He was just a lowly Nazifollowing orders.
So, you know, there's going tobe a lot more of that.
Sure.
Stay tuned for more.
More of Women Road warriorscoming up.
(37:38):
Dan Michael, the tax doctor here.
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(38:00):
call me now at 888-557-4020 orgo to mytaxhelpmd.com for a free
consultation and get your life back.
Welcome back to Women Roadwarriors with Shelly Johnson and
Kathy Tucaro.
(38:20):
Not all heroes wore uniformsin World War II.
Some worked quietly in theshadows and one of them was a woman
you may never have heard of.
Her name was Rose Vanlo, aParis museum curator who fooled the
Nazis right under their noseswhen Hitler's troops took over her
museum, turning it into theirhub for stolen art.
(38:42):
Rose played the part of themeek staffer, but in reality, she
was risking her life every dayscribbling down secret notes on thousands
of masterpieces headed forHitler's so called Fuhrer Museum.
Those notes weren't justlists, they were weapons.
Rose passed the information tothe Resistance helping protect Europe's
cultural soul.
(39:02):
She didn't always get her duecredit for all the work she did,
but she single handedly isresponsible for the continued recovery
of Europe's looted masterpieces.
Award winning journalistMichelle Young brings Rose's remarkable
story to life in her book theArt the Extraordinary Untold tale
of World War II resistancehero Rose.
(39:23):
It's gripping, it's inspiringand it proves that sometimes the
quietest voices are the onesthat change history.
Michelle, you're setting therecord straight with this book.
Thank you.
This is a tribute that Rosetruly deserved.
And I think it's also gonnabring awareness to people of the
massive roles women played.
(39:45):
Yes.
On the sideline or in thebackground in World War II and the
roles women have playedthroughout history, really.
Yes.
And I think the idea that I'dlove people to take away with is
that really, anybody can be a hero.
Everyone has a role they can play.
And in dire circumstances likewar, women get the opportunity to
(40:09):
play some of those roles.
Because of the change indynamics, men often go off to fight,
so women are doing otherthings that they were not doing before.
So.
Yes.
It was not just Rose.
In the museums of France.
There were many other femalecurators working for the Resistance.
Some of them were arrested,some survived the war.
(40:31):
So a lot of amazing stories.
I didn't have an opportunityto talk about all of them, but I
tried to fit them in in thebook where I could.
And you follow a few of thesevery, very brave women as well.
Well, the way you weaveeverything together keeps a reader
on his or her.
The edge of their seats, youknow, and this is.
This is good.
And, you know, and I thinkthat's also.
(40:51):
When we studied history inschool, a lot of times, it was kind
of boring.
Yeah.
If we could only bring thepeople to life, then you can relate
to it.
You make it relatable.
Yes.
You know, and I also came intothe genre as a fan.
I was just a big reader ofthese kind of books, and that's what
I wanted to achieve here withthe Art Spy and with Rose is that,
(41:14):
yes, her life is exciting, butwe can tell history in boring ways
or we can tell them inexciting ways, and both can be all
based on facts and all true.
I think this book would bewonderful to feature in schools.
Yes, I would love that.
Yeah.
Well, first of all, I don'tthink any of the students are going
to be bored, and they'recertainly going to get a really good
(41:36):
perspective of learning aboutart, learning about what it takes
to curate art, all of the.
The massive detail that's required.
And then they learn abouthistory, and they learn firsthand,
essentially, through theprotagonist, Rose, what it was like
to go through all of thesethings during the occupation of the
(41:57):
Nazis.
And there's so many elements here.
I agree with Kathy.
This would make a wonderful movie.
It would.
I see it.
It's like, oh, my God.
I'm just totally captivated.
Oh, thank you.
Yeah.
Looking into life in Parisbefore the war.
Life in Paris in the.
All of that was so exciting,so visual and vibrant.
(42:19):
And really a joy to researchand put to paper.
So where can people find the book?
Yes, well, it's everywhere.
Ideally, you can buy it fromyour local bookstores, but it's also
on Barnes and Noble and Amazonand my website, michelleyoungwriter.com
you can get an autographedcopy, dedicated copy, and.
(42:41):
Yes, please.
Or at your local library.
And it's the Art Spy, theextraordinary untold tale of World
War II resistance hero Rose Valon.
I just love this, and I lovethe painstaking effort you went to
to write this.
How much research did you haveto do?
I mean, there's a lot here.
Yeah.
So the book took me fouryears, the really three years of
(43:05):
the active, active researchingand writing.
And I went all over the world,so France, many, many times.
I worked with Rose Vallon'sfamily, with her partner Joyce Heere's
family.
A lot of archives.
She left a lot of papers behind.
So whether they were with theFrench museums or the diplomatic
(43:25):
archive, because she was partof the diplomatic corps after the
war, or other archives of hermaterials that came through her family
and her hometown, but alsosources in England and Germany, even
Lafayette, where she won anaward for her curatorial work.
I was tracking all of these down.
I'm the kind of person that isnot satisfied with one end of a letter.
(43:47):
I need the other side, thatkind of thing.
So I was really, reallyrelentless and had many, many threads
going on at the same time.
Felt a little bit like Rose,kind of keeping track of lots of
things and hoping they wouldall come together at some point.
I bet it was a bit overwhelming.
You weren't wondering wherethe story was going to go and how
to piece it all together.
(44:08):
I mean, it really is kind oflike playing a private detective.
Yeah.
I mean, some people ask me,did you have a board on your wall
like a detective movies?
I didn't, but I spread out allover my very large dining table and
during the really complicatedportions where I needed to understand
either to process thevoluminous amount of research or
look at a timeline andunderstand how it might all come
(44:30):
together with so manydifferent accounts.
I had stacks and index cardsand all of that.
So it was on a table, not onthe wall.
But it was pretty similar.
That was an undertaking, nodoubt about it.
That's impressive.
Very impressive.
And yes, like Shelly said,thank you for taking the time and
doing everything that you didto make this come to life.
(44:52):
Thank you.
And thank you for reading the book.
Oh, absolutely.
Do you have any other projectsthat you have in the Offering?
Well, yeah, I had many storiesthat I didn't have an opportunity
to write about through this book.
So I have a bunch of things,but I'm working on something now
that's more modern day true crime.
I can't say what it is, but Ihave a personal connection to it.
(45:14):
So I'm working on that to seewhat legs it has.
And I hope after that I'llcome back to World War II and tell
some of these lesser knownstories again.
You certainly have a veryinteresting life, not only of being
a writer, but you're also aprofessor and you get to travel the
world.
(45:35):
When do you have time to sleep?
I mean, this is really.
Well, sleep is very importantto me.
I was never one of thosepeople that pulled all nighters.
So as a result, I have to bevery, very efficient when I'm working.
And then for fun, I definitelywatch a lot of TV.
I just finished another WorldWar II series, so.
(45:57):
Okay.
Do you also watch true crimeat all or.
I do, I do.
And listen to podcasts.
Yeah.
Well, you know that it givesyou perspective and as a writer you
have to pull from so manydifferent things to really bring
things to life.
Yeah.
And I've been reading a realvariety of books.
Like right now I'm reading abook called Wild for Austen, and
(46:21):
it's about Jane Austen's wild side.
Ooh, yeah.
By Deveney Lucer, a JaneAusten academic professor.
Real.
The expert on Jane Austen.
And it is such a great read.
So fun and so different thanwhat I normally read.
Although.
Although I'm a big Jane Austenfan, so that's kind of why I'm reading
the book.
We don't think of her as wild.
(46:43):
Exactly.
Yeah, very interesting.
We just have maybe a coupleminutes here.
What did you find the mostinteresting about Rose?
I think it was how reticentshe was about talking about herself,
about sharing her private life.
So this was very interesting,but also a big challenge because
(47:05):
all the accounts and theattempts to look through her to tell
her story before I felt were alittle missing on the human side
of who she was.
And it's easy to kind of talkabout all her accolades.
We didn't even mention thatshe's one of the most medaled women
in World War II.
But, you know, if I wanted totell five years of her life, I really
(47:25):
needed to understand who wasthis woman.
And so as a result, I did sucha wide swath of research, I read
and reread her own writings.
And then I was decipheringscribbled notes in her papers.
And through all of that, I wasable to kind of really understand
exactly who she was.
(47:46):
And sometimes it wasn't until,like, subsequent readings that I
would see, oh, she's reallybeing emotional here about what she's
saying.
It would come off initially askind of matter of fact, but I would
realize later because I knewher writing so well, and I think
also just how iconoclastic she was.
She was.
Had a boy haircut in the 1920s.
(48:08):
She talked about loving,wearing suits and pants.
And then by the mid-1930s,she's living with her partner.
All of that was really brave,really daring, and contrary to the
image that a lot of people hadof her, which, if you read some of
the older articles,particularly in the 80s and stuff,
it describes her as mousy, as timid.
(48:33):
And that I really wanted tocorrect with this book because from
what I found in the evidence,she was not timid whatsoever.
There's one amazing scenewhere outside of the museum, they've
built a tower and they've puta German soldier who's trained his
rifle on them.
This is in the last daysbefore the Liberation.
And she decides that the onlything that can protect them and the
(48:57):
two guards with her in themuseum, male guards, is to open the
door and put herself in thecenter so that he sees that there's
a woman here.
You know, you don't do thatunless you have just this amazing
level of hizzpah and bravery.
Absolutely.
And good for you forcorrecting that, because the other
(49:18):
descriptors were very derogatory.
Mousy.
Now, I describe this woman as mousy.
I think that there are a lotof men that would not have done what
she did for that long of aperiod of time.
Right in the.
Yes, yes, for sure.
This is wonderful.
Michelle, I am so glad thatyou took the effort to write all
(49:39):
of this and bring Rose to lifeand really give us a perspective
on what was involved.
The Art Spy, the extraordinaryuntold tale of World War II resistance
hero Rose Vallon.
Where can people find it again?
Yes, anywhere you buy books.
Your local bookstore, Barnesand Noble, Amazon Library, and.
(50:00):
And my book tour continues ina very robust way all around the
country.
So I hope to see some of yourlisteners at some of my upcoming
events.
Wonderful.
Thank you, Michelle.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
This has been wonderful,delightful, and so intriguing and
exciting.
And I'm leaving this interviewtotally inspired for the day.
(50:22):
Thank you.
Yes, absolutely.
Thank you, Michelle.
Thank you both.
I totally agree with theAmazon description of Michelle's
book in the spirit of HiddenFigures with the sweeping narrative
of the Rape of Europa, the ArtSpy is an inspiration for us all.
An extraordinary tale ofcourage in a time of violence.
(50:43):
I highly recommend everyone goout and purchase this book by Michelle
Young.
It's extraordinary and atribute to a tremendous woman.
We hope you've enjoyed thislatest episode and if you want to
hear more episodes of WomenRoad warriors or learn more about
our show, be sure to check outwomenroadwarriors.com and don't forget
(51:04):
to subscribe to our podcast onour website.
We also have a selection ofpodcasts Just for Women.
They're a series of podcastsfrom different podcasters.
So if you're in the mood forwomen's podcasts, just click the
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warriors is on all the majorpodcast channels like Apple, Spotify,
(51:25):
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Check us out and please followus wherever you listen to podcasts.
Thanks for listening.
You've been listening to WomenRoad warriors with Shelly Johnson
and Kathy Tucaro.
If you want to be a guest onthe show or have a topic or feedback,
(51:46):
email us@sjohnsonomenroadwarriors.com.
This is Women Road warriorswith Shelly Johnson and Kathy Tucaro.
From the corporate office tothe cab of a truck, they're here
to inspire and empower womenin all professions.
So gear down, sit back and enjoy.
(00:24):
Welcome.
We're an award winning showdedicated to empowering women in
every profession throughinspiring stories and expert insights.
No topics off limits on ourshow, we power women on the road
to success with expert andcelebrity interviews and information
you need.
I'm Shelley.
And I'm Kathy.
(00:44):
There are so many unsungheroes from World War II, and the
roles women had are oftendownplayed or simply forgotten.
Award winning journalistMichelle Young was not about to let
that happen.
With a key hero named RoseVallon, she's documented her major
efforts in her book the Artthe Extraordinary Untold tale of
(01:05):
World War II resistance heroRose Velon the Art Spy tells the
astonishing true story ofRose, a quiet Paris museum curator
who became an unlikely WorldWar II resistance heroine.
While the Nazis used hermuseum, the Jeu de Paume, as their
headquarters for art theft,Rose secretly spied on them, risking
her life to record details ofthousands of stolen works bound for
(01:29):
Hitler's planned super museum,the Fuhrer Museum.
Armed with bravery,intelligence, and sheer determination,
Rose passed criticalinformation to the Resistance, helped
safeguard Europe's culturaltreasures, and even stood her ground
during the liberation of Paris.
Her story, long overlooked,finally gets sweeping exposure it
deserves in Michel's book.
(01:50):
Publishers Weekly said intheir review that readers will relish
this riveting tale of a cleverwar hero playing the long game against
bumbling fascists.
Michelle's work is nothingshort of compelling.
She's a graduate of HarvardCollege in the history of art and
architecture and holds amaster's from Columbia University's
Graduate School ofArchitecture, Planning and Preservation,
(02:12):
where she's also a professorof architecture.
Her work has appeared in theWall Street Journal, the Guardian,
and the Forward, among others.
She's the founder of thepublication Untapped New York.
Kathy and I were captivated,so we invited Michelle on the show.
Welcome, Michelle.
Thank you for being with us.
Thanks so much for having meon your show.
(02:33):
We are so honored, Michelle.
Your book is not only awonderful tribute to Rose, but a
riveting tale of espionage andintrigue that brings Rose to life.
For readers, her sacrificesand risks were crucial in saving
and recovering much ofEurope's stolen art.
It's still helping in recoveryefforts today.
(02:53):
I understand many of hercontributions were largely forgotten.
What motivated you to writeabout her?
Well, no exaggeration to saythat I was reading pretty much exclusively
World War II books because inmy real job, the day job, I was writing
and researching about New York City.
It's architecture, urbanplanning, school.
(03:14):
So I really wanted to dosomething that, you know, wasn't
triggering, that would piquemy interest.
And my family's history isrooted in World War II.
My grandfather survived theatomic bomb in Hiroshima as a Taiwanese
student.
And then I married someone French.
So I started digging intoWorld War II European history as
(03:34):
well and came across her storyand like many other female stories,
as you mentioned, wasastounded that there was not much
about her out there at all andno full length English book in the.
In the trade press about herin America.
Wow.
And she played such a vitalrole and still does long after her
(03:55):
death.
I was reading that sheremained under recognized for decades,
overshadowed by the mostlymale monuments men.
That's correct.
I mean, I think that's thestory of women in World War II in
general, and the fact that alot of people are interested in the
warfare, the battles, andthat's the general dominant narrative
about World War II.
(04:15):
But behind the scenes, a lotof the people who enabled those battles
to happen and the war to befought on so many fronts were women.
She was so brave, and I'm surethis is not something she ever anticipated
doing in her life.
You go into her early life aswell as some of her personal life
(04:36):
and all of that.
She took such big risks.
She was in serious danger ineverything she was doing.
Could you give a summary orsynopsis of who Rose was and how
all of this began?
Yes.
So her early life.
She is born in 1898 in a verysmall countryside village southeast
of Lyon, about 40 miles.
(04:57):
It's a very sheltered,conservative religious area.
But she displays very earlytalents in the arts and in her studies.
And her mother, unlike a lotof other women of this generation,
was really fought to have her educated.
So applied for scholarshipsfor her to go to better and better
schools.
(05:17):
She makes her way up, winsmany awards, and after kind of being
at the top schools in theregion, ends up at the Ecole du Beaux
Arts in Paris, where all themajor artists have studied.
And she not only does that,but she gets what's the equivalent
of multiple graduate degreesat the same time at the Ecole du
(05:37):
Louvre, at the Sorbonne andother schools.
So I say that she was aroaring twenties overachiever, and
there was very few, if not anyfemale art historians more educated
than she was.
But she has a hard timefinding a job after her education.
This is due to her class andother factors.
(05:59):
She has a nemesis that sheencounters who finds her too modern.
He, unfortunately, is head ofthe Louvre and head of her school,
where she's writing herthesis, the Ecole du Louvre.
And so she takes an unpaidsecretarial job at the museum, which
is a modern art museum next tothe Louvre.
It's part of the Frenchnational museums, but not extremely
(06:23):
prestigious in terms of a workplace.
But she takes this unpaid job,fights to become an unpaid curatorial
member.
That takes her four years.
And at that point, a few yearslater is when World War II breaks
out.
And she's an integral part tothe protection of art In World War
(06:44):
II, the movement of art fromthe museums to the Loire Valley out
of harm's way.
And then in the end of 1940,the Nazis have requisitioned the
museum.
She's in the Jutpomme fortheir own uses, to transit looted
art through, to document,move, and then eventually ship out
(07:06):
of France.
Wow.
Wow.
That's all.
I gotta say, all she lay.
She was seriously brave.
I mean, obviously she wasfighting sexism as well as the terrible
Nazis who were processingstolen art, requisitioning it to
take it to this super museumthat Hitler wanted, which was a terrible,
(07:27):
terrible thing.
I mean, this had to put her ina very precarious spot.
And of course, then she becamepart of the French Resistance, which
I don't imagine she ever sawin her future.
No, I don't think so.
But in many ways, I think herwhole life experience really prepared
her for that.
She had been used to beingunder the radar, concealing her where
(07:48):
she came from.
One of the really tellingthings was when I heard one of the
rare interviews she did thatwe have in audio.
And my husband said, rightaway, she talks exactly like my grandfather.
And his grandfather was very,very high up in the civil service
and also served in World War II.
And there was a way ofspeaking that indicated in France
that you were educated.
(08:08):
And even though she doesn'tcome from this world, she learned
to play that part.
And that is exactly what shepulled from when she was a Resistance
spy in the museum at great danger.
And I think you asked before,kind of what.
How in harm's way was she?
And so to give some color onthat, every day she was working right
under the noses of some of themost powerful Nazis in Paris.
(08:31):
They were sent there, but alsohaving a grand time, stealing everything
they could.
They were stealing for theThird Reich, but then also stealing
for themselves.
And her job initially was justto figure out what's going on in
this museum, who are the key players?
And you can see in her notes,she's listening phonetically to the
German.
She has a secret superpower inthat her partner, a woman named Joyce
(08:54):
here, whom she ends up beingwith for her whole life, 50 years,
is actually half German.
This woman grew up in,partially in Britain, where she was
born and in Germany, and hashelped Rose learn German.
And then over time, she'sstealing documents, whether they're
(09:14):
papers thrown out in the wastebasket or the negatives of photographs
that they've taken of the art.
And, you know, because they'reNazis out of central casting, they're
also taking what we would callselfies today and posing in front
of stolen art and stuff.
So she ends up having thisamazing record of everything that's
(09:36):
gone on, the art that'sstolen, and who these people are,
their names and their photographs.
And that's eventually what shepasses on to the Monuments Men, or
what we called a MonumentsMen, and becomes a Monuments Officer
herself after the war.
Wow.
All I can say is bravo to her.
Yes.
Yeah.
When I read these books, Ioften think, what would I have done?
(09:57):
And that's really whatmotivates me because I think, again,
we can imagine what we might do.
But here's what someone reallydecided, and it's always very inspiring.
In the end, I realized that Iwould be no good spy.
I don't have the poker facefor it.
But Rose really did.
And you can see that from theway she writes and how other people
talk about her.
She wasn't always the person,the people pleasing room person.
(10:19):
Sorry, in the room at all.
And it's interesting becauseshe was not trained to be this.
So she had to kind of play itby ear, if you will, and learn to
be very, very secretive andobservant and of course, not be a
threat, because obviously, I'msure that the Nazis were constantly
looking.
The amount of stress thiswoman had to have every single day,
(10:42):
every single minute of theday, going to work.
Imagine.
Yeah.
And then adding to that, shelived with her partner Joyce here,
who was.
That was very taboo at the time.
It was criminalized underVichy France, Correct?
That's correct.
And also under German law,heterosexuality was.
Was legal really, just for men.
(11:03):
But they harassed lesbiancommunities all the time.
So this wouldn't have beensomething she would want out in the
public.
And she didn't even want itwhen France wasn't occupied.
She kept that a secret becausethrough the 1930s, when they were
living together.
And so one of the moststriking things that I discovered
was when the Nazis took overher museum.
(11:24):
Just a month later, Joyce isactually arrested by the Germans
with the help of the Frenchpolice and interned in the east of
France.
And Rose has no idea where she is.
Joyce worked for the US Embassy.
They also had no idea whereshe was.
So one can imagine very easilythat stress that you're describing.
(11:45):
So not just being a spy andcould be caught any time, but not
knowing where the love of yourlife is.
Yes.
Well, wasn't here consideredan enemy alien?
Yeah, that's correct.
And this is one of the realuntold stories of World War II that
I discovered is all theBritish and anyone who was part of
the Allied nationality wasconsidered an enemy alien under occupied
(12:11):
French, occupied France.
And so they were allowed tostay and were termed.
They were on parole.
And so they had to go to theKalman d' Autour every day and sign
their name and give their address.
And so this is exactly how theGermans knew where they were when
(12:34):
they decided it's time toround them up and imprison them.
And so they went door to doorstarting at 5:30 in the morning,
knocking and shiningflashlights in their faces.
So Joyce was living with Roseat this time.
And so they would have.
They would have been joltedfrom their sleep and she would have
been taken.
Oh, God.
(12:54):
And how long did Rose endureall of that?
How many years?
So she was undercover foralmost four years.
Wow, that would be a lifetimewith that kind of stress.
You know, as an author myself,and I could just almost feel the
(13:14):
energy in you as you'rediscovering this and just wanting
to write about it.
Oh my God.
How come this hasn't beenwritten about before?
And it's so enthralling.
Yeah, I.
Yes, that's exactly what I felt.
And I had a hunch, maybe as awoman of the same sex as Rose, but,
you know, just knowing that, Ibet her story is even crazier.
(13:37):
That was just my feeling.
And that's why I focused thisbook primarily only on the five years
of World War II in Europe andthe time that she was in the war.
And I went into it hoping Iwould find enough, kind of believing
that I would.
And I did.
In the end, I filled in thoseholes in her timeline, figured out
(13:58):
what happened to her, forexample, when the Germans arrived
in Paris at the gates, andwhat happened to her.
It was a harrowing journey ofher escape out of Paris during that
time.
And hopefully, hopefully I'vebrought her to life and really given
her the due that she's been owed.
(14:20):
Stay tuned for more of WomenRoad warriors coming up.
Dean Michael, the tax doctor here.
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(15:28):
Welcome back to Women Roadwarriors with Shelly Johnson and
Kathy Tucaro.
If you're enjoying thisinformative episode of Women Road
Warriors, I wanted to mentionKathy and I explore all kinds of
topics that will power you onthe road to success.
We feature a lot of expertinterviews, plus we feature celebrities
(15:49):
and women who've been trailblazers.
Please check out ourpodcast@womenroadwarriors.com and
click on our Episodes page.
We're also available whereveryou listen to podcasts on all the
major podcast channels likeSpotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon,
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Check us out and bookmark our podcast.
(16:09):
Also, don't forget to followus on social media.
We're on Twitter, Facebook,Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube
and other sites and tellothers about us.
We want to help as many womenas possible.
You know, history books oftengloss over the quiet heroes, especially
the women who shaped thecourse of World War II.
Award winning journalistMichelle Young has made sure one
(16:31):
of those stories won't be forgotten.
Her book, the Art theExtraordinary Untold Tale of World
War II resistance hero RoseVallon uncovers the astonishing true
tale of Rose, a seeminglyunassuming curator at the Jeu de
Pompe Museum in Paris.
When the Nazis turned hermuseum into a headquarters for art
(16:51):
theft, she risked everythingsecretly spying, she recorded the
details of thousands of stolenmasterpieces bound for Hitler's planned
Fuhrer Museum.
With intelligence, bravery andsheer determination, she passed priceless
information to the Resistance,safeguarded Europe's cultural treasures,
and even stood her groundduring the liberation of Paris.
(17:13):
Her work is still uncoveringartwork today.
Publishers Weekly callsMichelle's book a riveting tale of
a clever war hero playing thelong game against bumbling fascists.
Michelle, besides thecompelling storyline, you really
do bring Rose and history to life.
When we read about history, wedon't really know about the people.
(17:35):
We know their names, we knowthe dates.
But what makes it interestingis these are people and you can actually
delve into their lives and yougive the readers the ability to actually
step into Rose's life andreally feel the fear and really see
the challenges that she hadand how she evolved as a protagonist.
(17:58):
She was a very innovative woman.
She's really amazing.
Yeah, I think she was for sure brilliant.
And even the way she processedinformation was amazing to me.
Right.
Because she's just like takingall these notes, but she's not even
doing it in the museum becauseshe's prevented from taking notes.
But conveniently, her othersuperpower is that she has near photographic
(18:19):
memory.
Wow.
So these aren't just like, oh,a random name.
It's who the.
What addresses have this, hasthis art been stolen from?
Who does it belong to?
What are the shippingmanifests, the numbers of the train
cars that these.
This art is going to.
She's doing that all at home.
And then occasionally if she'sable to steal some documents that.
(18:40):
That can enable her.
So I really, I describe her ashaving a brain like a computer because
she kept all of that organizedin her head and then.
And that's amazing.
Yeah, that's incredible.
Oh, and especially under thatkind of pressure to remember all
of that and to catalog it inyour head.
(19:01):
Oh, my goodness.
Yeah.
There was just, I think, twomoments in the book where I allowed
some modern day terminology toseep into the book, which I try not
to, because you want to beimmersed and you want to be with
Rose.
It's a narrative nonfiction,so must read like a thriller and
everything is true.
But.
But there were two phrases.
So one was describing her as aoverachiever because I think that's
(19:24):
really what described hereducation when I looked at it.
And then in this aspect of herbrain, I described it as like a computer
because I really wantedreaders to understand the extent
of which she was so unique andso brilliant.
How involved is it to be a curator?
I would think that the detailsare just overwhelming.
(19:46):
And she's storing all of thisin her head, trying to figure out
where all of the artwork went.
It's great that you bring thatup, because there was a line in one
of her.
Either one of her letters orher memoir where she said, basically,
in the war, I did what I wastrained to do, to make lists, lists,
lists and lists.
And of course, she had moreskills beyond that.
(20:08):
But she was such anaccomplished academic curator.
And in terms of the things shewould be doing would be looking for
new art to acquire, figuringout how to hang them in the museum,
what should be on thepermanent display, what should not
be, and making lists toprepare for war, and then also writing
(20:31):
up exhibition catalogs, thegeneral catalog of the whole collection
of the museum.
So a real varied job description.
And then what kind of made herunder the radar for the Germans was
they thought that she was justpretty much like a custodian because
she also knew how the buildingworked, how the fire system works,
(20:51):
how the electrical systemworks, and she was liaisoning with
the French guards that alreadyworked there.
And so they kind of dismissedher as this lowly custodian secretary.
And then, of course, sheunderplayed what she knew.
So do you think that being awoman was an advantage at that point
(21:14):
because she was more easily dismissed?
Yes.
So throughout World War II,women were always overlooked, and
they couldn't really believethat they would be doing something,
you know, against the regimeor anything.
But she was particularly underoverlooked because there were other
women in the museum.
They were all either Germanart historians that were sent there
(21:35):
to catalog all the stolen art,or they were German secretaries.
And these were very prepped,primped women.
There was a lot of intrigueand affairs going on between the
German art historians and theGerman secretaries.
And she was very plain.
She was never reallyinterested in wearing dresses and
dressing up, which was acontrast to her partner, Joyce, who
(21:58):
was drop dead gorgeous, reallylooked like a movie star.
So we know that it wasn't thatRose didn't have the ability to dress
up.
It just wasn't in her personality.
So as a result, the Germansreally overlooked her.
There were too many otherwomen simpering around.
There was an example of onewoman who actually walked around
the museum in her nightgown.
So there was a lot to bedistracted by.
(22:20):
Wow.
That'S really funny.
I sure hope they make a movieout of this.
All right.
I know this would befascinating and it's educational.
It brings history to life.
And people really need to knowhow many people played a role in
defeating the Nazis and someof the terrible.
(22:40):
Well, we already know theterrible things they did.
But the way they impacted theart world, it was a travesty what
they did in terms of art.
What are some of the famous pieces?
I mean, they really abscondedwith some phenomenal historical works
of art.
What are some of the piecesthat the Nazis ran off with?
(23:01):
Yeah, so the Nazis wereprimarily interested in what we called
the old masters, so painterslike Vermeer and Rembrandt and Hans
Holbein, because that's theart that Hitler understood.
And it also fell under thekind of general term as being Germanic
in origin.
And so they were avidlycollecting this.
But when they looted artcollections and they came into France
(23:22):
with already a list ofeverything they wanted to steal,
including the 15 major artgalleries, which were predominantly
owned by.
By Jewish gallery owners.
And so when they would.
They took commando units andreally liquidated all these art galleries
wholesale, so they would comeback with the kind of art that Hitler
wanted, but also art that theydidn't really know what to do with.
(23:44):
That was modern art, likePicasso's, Matisse and Braque.
And so those kind of gotseparated, and usually the art that
would move out of France andbe exported back to Germany would
be those old masters paintings.
So I'll give you paintingnumber one that they were looking
for was called the Astronomerby Vermeer, and it had been part
(24:07):
of the Rothschild family, theFrench Rothschild family, for centuries.
And so this was number one ontheir list.
And the very eerie thing iswhen you look at the German documents
that were made in this museum,it is labeled R1 Rothschild 1, the
first painting to come throughthe Jeut Pon Museum to be cataloged.
(24:28):
And so that was the big one,but there was really paintings by
anyone, you know, Van Gogh,Monet, all that stuff was coming
through.
And then between kind of theVan Gogh, Monet era and the modern
art of that time period, whichincludes the Picassos and Leger and
Braques and Matisse, thosethey were trying to figure out what
(24:50):
to do with.
And so they ended up, youknow, selling a lot, exchanging a
lot, burning a lot.
And Rose witnesses The burningof 500 of these modern paintings
in the courtyard of the museumin July 1943.
That had to break her heart.
Yeah.
When you think of the loss ofall of that, I mean, the brilliance
(25:11):
that just went up in smoke.
Yeah, she found all of thisvery painful.
You know, I think that she wasmotivated not because she just loved
kind of art itself, but whatit represented for the culture of
France and also for her.
It was her ticket out of whereshe came from so beauty to her was
(25:35):
kind of paramount.
And she writes in the openingof her memoir that she did this to
save a little of the beauty ofthe world.
So you're right, this was anextremely painful moment for her
to witness, to document.
And it really defined a greatpart of the rest of her life, because
when she wrote about thisafter the war, it was kind of immediately
(25:58):
questioned.
And that has entered into kindof present day discussion about Rose
Vallon.
So I knew if I wanted to tellthis story from her perspective,
I would need to know whetherthis was true or not and definitively
true or not.
And so over the course of thefour years I worked on this book,
I hoped I would find some documents.
A smoking gun, right?
(26:19):
And one day I found in theback of a box in the diplomatic archives
in France, four notarized,handwritten, signed documents by
the guards who worked in the museums.
And in great, great detail,not just this event happened, and
I signed my name, but down toI was ordered by the German guards
to light the bonfire.
Incredible detail that endedup, you know, informing that chapter
(26:41):
of the book.
But the thing I was mostgratified about was to be able to
correct the record ofsomething she felt so strongly about.
I read so many letters of hertrying to ask people if they had
documents, evidence, thingsshe could use to prove this was,
this event was true.
Bravo to you for finding it.
Yes.
So kidding.
(27:01):
You gave her the credit thatshe deserved and reinstated her credibility.
Yes, yes.
You know, it always shocked methat we trust her for all these things.
Like if you have a paintingthat needs to be restituted, and
whether it's being sold atChristie's or wherever the provenance
researchers go to France toconsult her documents.
(27:24):
And oftentimes Rose'sdocuments are the only proof that
exists that an art was lootedby the Nazis.
So, you know, her documentsunderscore deals that are hundreds
of millions of dollars today.
And why is this questioned?
And you know, the questionalso in my mind, if a man had said
this, would it have been questioned?
And one of the amazing things,when I went back to check, okay,
(27:47):
where does this doubt come from?
Because that's reallyimportant when you're researching
things.
Try to trace back where a mythor a conspiracy theory or a falsehood
comes from.
You gotta go to the beginning.
And what I realized was thatit was the men who, the Nazis in
the museum who came out to aGerman newspaper in the 1960s to
say what Rose is saying is false.
(28:08):
There was not.
There was no fire.
And then they add, of course,if it did happen, it was Rose who
did it.
So it's, it's classic.
It's.
It's deny, deflect.
Yeah.
And so.
And I think you can do that tomarginalized communities of people
more easily than someonethat's in the.
In the dominant narrative.
Very, very true.
(28:31):
Stay tuned for more of WomenRoad warriors coming up.
Dean Michael, the tax doctor here.
I have one question for you.
Do you want to stop worryingabout the irs?
If the answer is yes, thenlook no further.
I've been around for years.
I've helped countless peopleacross the country, and my success
rate speaks for itself.
(28:52):
So now you know where to findgood, honest help with your tax problems.
What are you waiting for?
If you owe more than $10,000to the IRS or haven't filed in years,
call me now at 888-557-4020 orgo to mytaxhelpmd.com for a free
consultation.
And get your life back.
Welcome back to Women Roadwarriors with Shelly Johnson and
(29:16):
Kathy Tucaro.
History often overlooks thewomen who changed its course, but
journalist Michelle Youngrefuses to let that happen.
In her new book, the Art theExtraordinary Untold Tale of World
War II resistance hero RoseVallon, she reveals how one quiet
(29:37):
Paris museum curator became aforce of defiance against the Nazis
when Hitler's armycommandeered the Jeu de Paul Museum
as their headquarters for art theft.
Rose was right there,watching, listening, and recording
every detail.
Day after day.
She risked her life to keeptrack of thousands of masterpieces.
(29:57):
What seemed like routine noteswere actually lifelines of intelligence
that she funneled to theFrench Resistance.
Her courage safeguardedpriceless cultural treasures and
helped preserve Europe's heritage.
And when Paris was finallyliberated, Rose didn't step aside.
She stood firm to ensurestolen art could be reclaimed.
Michel's book is trulyincredible and a wonderful tribute
(30:21):
to Rose, Michel.
Rose went through so much inthe liberation of Paris.
She also learned the Nazis hadorders to neutralize the museum and
make her disappear.
Yes, that had to have beenabsolutely terrifying.
I mean, she'd been through allof this, and then she was facing
that, too.
Yes, you're right.
And these words aretranslations of what she said and
(30:45):
what she learned.
So, yes, the orders toneutralize the museum and use it
as a defense against all theheadquarters of the Germans, which
were holed up in the hotelsalong the Rue de Rivoli next to the
Louvre.
So her museum was in theTuileries, across from the German
commander of Paris.
(31:05):
So basically, it was said, ifpush comes to shove, you can destroy
this museum as a means toprotect everyone else behind it.
And at the same time, thepeople, the Germans working in her
museum, begin to suspect hernear the end.
And they've decided that,regardless, even if she's a spy or
not, she knows too muchbecause she was here the whole time.
(31:27):
And so one Nazi named Kurt vonBaer gives an order to ideally bring
her to the border, cross theborder, and then liquidate her.
That's the term that was used.
So she doesn't know about thisorder until after the war.
It comes out in a war tribunalagainst the men in the museum.
(31:48):
But it's, of course, harrowingto just be in the final battle.
She's actually there with allthe soldiers fighting.
She's in this museum duringthose last days.
And then not only does shesurvive that, then she becomes a
suspect for collaboration asParis is being liberated and the
mob breaks into her museum,breaks the windows, breaks the locks,
(32:11):
and she's put at gunpoint.
And I won't give away whathappens, but, you know, it's like
at kind of every turn of thewar, she's in extremely precarious
conditions and situations.
Unbelievable.
Yeah.
Yeah.
She probably never felt safe.
Not that anyone did with theNazi occupations, but, I mean, she
was right in the thick of it.
(32:32):
Yeah.
And I think it's sointeresting that our common conception
of a spy is someone in thefield probably blowing up trains.
And it's arguably, of course,very dangerous, but I think it's
equally dangerous to have beenworking undercover under the nose
of these Nazis every day ofthe war.
(32:53):
And you're right, the.
The pressure and stress thatwas under.
And one of the most tellingthings I found was an interview that
she did actually with Ellemagazine around the time that a book.
Sorry, a movie came out basedon a chapter for book about the last
train of art she was trying tostop from leaving France.
There are a thousand paintingson it.
(33:13):
And she's interviewed on theset of this movie called the Train
by Burt Lancaster.
And they film it inside theJutpo museum.
So the museum that she hadworked for, that she was spying inside,
and they've made it look likeit was during the war.
And there are German soldiers.
Obviously, these are actors,but they're wearing the uniforms.
(33:36):
They have the black boots andthe guns.
They're cocking their guns.
And for the first time, shekind of loses it.
And she.
She kind of.
She flees the museum, and shecomes back the next day to talk to
the Journalist and says, I,who am normally so calm, I don't
know what happened.
I couldn't even find themetro, the subway.
(34:00):
And that was 20 years after.
So she had kept that with heruntil that moment when she was confronted
with it to her face for thefirst time again.
Wow.
Well, her work was invaluable.
She certainly passed all ofthis information onto the French
(34:20):
Resistance at great risk to herself.
And her meticulous records arestill being used today and recovering
art that's still missing.
Am I correct?
That's right, yes.
So it's estimated about ahundred thousand works of art are
still missing.
The Nazis took about 650,000works of art.
That's of what we know.
(34:41):
Crazy.
I know.
It was a real militaryoperation all the time.
And that's what we know andthat's what they documented and what
we were able to figure out.
So undoubtedly much more than that.
And so looted art is coming tolight all the time.
And the laws in Europe weresuch that for the post war period,
(35:03):
if something was in yourpossession for 30 years and you could
prove that you had got it kindof, you had clean hands.
So it was pretty easy to kindof fudge that you gave it to somebody
else for safekeeping or such,it was now that person's.
And so that's why you see alot of looted art emerge in the 70s
(35:24):
and get bought.
Before we had more stringentpolicies about the sale of looted
art.
It's still probably not strong enough.
But now since the 90s, therehave been at least frameworks developed
between nations about how todeal with it.
And so 70s, they get sold,they disappear for another generation.
(35:45):
And now they're coming tolight again.
And I don't know if you sawthe news, but a woman in Argentina
put her house up for sale andin one of the photographs was a painting
that was looted in World War II.
And it created like aninternational scandal and story that
people have been riveted and following.
And that's again because thenext generation is starting to get
(36:06):
older and selling their property.
So we will be seeing a lotmore looted art come to market or
be discovered.
Wow.
Yeah.
And that's where Rosie's workis that much more valuable because
we need to have that record.
She is saving history in somany ways.
She made history, she's saving history.
(36:28):
It was just a travesty whatthe Nazis did all the way across
the board.
And I can only imagine yousaid way over 100,000 works of art
that are still missing.
It could be anywhere yes, yes.
I mean, there are a lot likeclean Swiss bank vaults.
One of the men, the Nazis whoworked in the museum with Rose Bruno
(36:51):
lose a real nemesis of hers.
She's the, he's the one thatwas on trial in France after the
war and she actually served ashis interrogating witness, which
is again, yet another accoladefor Rosevello.
And when he died, they foundall sorts of looted art and impressionist
(37:12):
paintings in his, in his bankvault in Switzerland.
And he had said to his deaththat he didn't steal anything.
He was just a lowly Nazifollowing orders.
So, you know, there's going tobe a lot more of that.
Sure.
Stay tuned for more.
More of Women Road warriorscoming up.
(37:38):
Dan Michael, the tax doctor here.
I have one question for you.
Do you want to stop worryingabout the irs?
If the answer is yes, thenlook no further.
I've been around for years.
I've helped countless peopleacross the country and my success
rate speaks for itself.
So now you know where to findgood, honest help with your tax problems.
What are you waiting for?
If you owe more than $10,000to the IRS or haven't filed in years,
(38:00):
call me now at 888-557-4020 orgo to mytaxhelpmd.com for a free
consultation and get your life back.
Welcome back to Women Roadwarriors with Shelly Johnson and
Kathy Tucaro.
(38:20):
Not all heroes wore uniformsin World War II.
Some worked quietly in theshadows and one of them was a woman
you may never have heard of.
Her name was Rose Vanlo, aParis museum curator who fooled the
Nazis right under their noseswhen Hitler's troops took over her
museum, turning it into theirhub for stolen art.
(38:42):
Rose played the part of themeek staffer, but in reality, she
was risking her life every dayscribbling down secret notes on thousands
of masterpieces headed forHitler's so called Fuhrer Museum.
Those notes weren't justlists, they were weapons.
Rose passed the information tothe Resistance helping protect Europe's
cultural soul.
(39:02):
She didn't always get her duecredit for all the work she did,
but she single handedly isresponsible for the continued recovery
of Europe's looted masterpieces.
Award winning journalistMichelle Young brings Rose's remarkable
story to life in her book theArt the Extraordinary Untold tale
of World War II resistancehero Rose.
(39:23):
It's gripping, it's inspiringand it proves that sometimes the
quietest voices are the onesthat change history.
Michelle, you're setting therecord straight with this book.
Thank you.
This is a tribute that Rosetruly deserved.
And I think it's also gonnabring awareness to people of the
massive roles women played.
(39:45):
Yes.
On the sideline or in thebackground in World War II and the
roles women have playedthroughout history, really.
Yes.
And I think the idea that I'dlove people to take away with is
that really, anybody can be a hero.
Everyone has a role they can play.
And in dire circumstances likewar, women get the opportunity to
(40:09):
play some of those roles.
Because of the change indynamics, men often go off to fight,
so women are doing otherthings that they were not doing before.
So.
Yes.
It was not just Rose.
In the museums of France.
There were many other femalecurators working for the Resistance.
Some of them were arrested,some survived the war.
(40:31):
So a lot of amazing stories.
I didn't have an opportunityto talk about all of them, but I
tried to fit them in in thebook where I could.
And you follow a few of thesevery, very brave women as well.
Well, the way you weaveeverything together keeps a reader
on his or her.
The edge of their seats, youknow, and this is.
This is good.
And, you know, and I thinkthat's also.
(40:51):
When we studied history inschool, a lot of times, it was kind
of boring.
Yeah.
If we could only bring thepeople to life, then you can relate
to it.
You make it relatable.
Yes.
You know, and I also came intothe genre as a fan.
I was just a big reader ofthese kind of books, and that's what
I wanted to achieve here withthe Art Spy and with Rose is that,
(41:14):
yes, her life is exciting, butwe can tell history in boring ways
or we can tell them inexciting ways, and both can be all
based on facts and all true.
I think this book would bewonderful to feature in schools.
Yes, I would love that.
Yeah.
Well, first of all, I don'tthink any of the students are going
to be bored, and they'recertainly going to get a really good
(41:36):
perspective of learning aboutart, learning about what it takes
to curate art, all of the.
The massive detail that's required.
And then they learn abouthistory, and they learn firsthand,
essentially, through theprotagonist, Rose, what it was like
to go through all of thesethings during the occupation of the
(41:57):
Nazis.
And there's so many elements here.
I agree with Kathy.
This would make a wonderful movie.
It would.
I see it.
It's like, oh, my God.
I'm just totally captivated.
Oh, thank you.
Yeah.
Looking into life in Parisbefore the war.
Life in Paris in the.
All of that was so exciting,so visual and vibrant.
(42:19):
And really a joy to researchand put to paper.
So where can people find the book?
Yes, well, it's everywhere.
Ideally, you can buy it fromyour local bookstores, but it's also
on Barnes and Noble and Amazonand my website, michelleyoungwriter.com
you can get an autographedcopy, dedicated copy, and.
(42:41):
Yes, please.
Or at your local library.
And it's the Art Spy, theextraordinary untold tale of World
War II resistance hero Rose Valon.
I just love this, and I lovethe painstaking effort you went to
to write this.
How much research did you haveto do?
I mean, there's a lot here.
Yeah.
So the book took me fouryears, the really three years of
(43:05):
the active, active researchingand writing.
And I went all over the world,so France, many, many times.
I worked with Rose Vallon'sfamily, with her partner Joyce Heere's
family.
A lot of archives.
She left a lot of papers behind.
So whether they were with theFrench museums or the diplomatic
(43:25):
archive, because she was partof the diplomatic corps after the
war, or other archives of hermaterials that came through her family
and her hometown, but alsosources in England and Germany, even
Lafayette, where she won anaward for her curatorial work.
I was tracking all of these down.
I'm the kind of person that isnot satisfied with one end of a letter.
(43:47):
I need the other side, thatkind of thing.
So I was really, reallyrelentless and had many, many threads
going on at the same time.
Felt a little bit like Rose,kind of keeping track of lots of
things and hoping they wouldall come together at some point.
I bet it was a bit overwhelming.
You weren't wondering wherethe story was going to go and how
to piece it all together.
(44:08):
I mean, it really is kind oflike playing a private detective.
Yeah.
I mean, some people ask me,did you have a board on your wall
like a detective movies?
I didn't, but I spread out allover my very large dining table and
during the really complicatedportions where I needed to understand
either to process thevoluminous amount of research or
look at a timeline andunderstand how it might all come
(44:30):
together with so manydifferent accounts.
I had stacks and index cardsand all of that.
So it was on a table, not onthe wall.
But it was pretty similar.
That was an undertaking, nodoubt about it.
That's impressive.
Very impressive.
And yes, like Shelly said,thank you for taking the time and
doing everything that you didto make this come to life.
(44:52):
Thank you.
And thank you for reading the book.
Oh, absolutely.
Do you have any other projectsthat you have in the Offering?
Well, yeah, I had many storiesthat I didn't have an opportunity
to write about through this book.
So I have a bunch of things,but I'm working on something now
that's more modern day true crime.
I can't say what it is, but Ihave a personal connection to it.
(45:14):
So I'm working on that to seewhat legs it has.
And I hope after that I'llcome back to World War II and tell
some of these lesser knownstories again.
You certainly have a veryinteresting life, not only of being
a writer, but you're also aprofessor and you get to travel the
world.
(45:35):
When do you have time to sleep?
I mean, this is really.
Well, sleep is very importantto me.
I was never one of thosepeople that pulled all nighters.
So as a result, I have to bevery, very efficient when I'm working.
And then for fun, I definitelywatch a lot of TV.
I just finished another WorldWar II series, so.
(45:57):
Okay.
Do you also watch true crimeat all or.
I do, I do.
And listen to podcasts.
Yeah.
Well, you know that it givesyou perspective and as a writer you
have to pull from so manydifferent things to really bring
things to life.
Yeah.
And I've been reading a realvariety of books.
Like right now I'm reading abook called Wild for Austen, and
(46:21):
it's about Jane Austen's wild side.
Ooh, yeah.
By Deveney Lucer, a JaneAusten academic professor.
Real.
The expert on Jane Austen.
And it is such a great read.
So fun and so different thanwhat I normally read.
Although.
Although I'm a big Jane Austenfan, so that's kind of why I'm reading
the book.
We don't think of her as wild.
(46:43):
Exactly.
Yeah, very interesting.
We just have maybe a coupleminutes here.
What did you find the mostinteresting about Rose?
I think it was how reticentshe was about talking about herself,
about sharing her private life.
So this was very interesting,but also a big challenge because
(47:05):
all the accounts and theattempts to look through her to tell
her story before I felt were alittle missing on the human side
of who she was.
And it's easy to kind of talkabout all her accolades.
We didn't even mention thatshe's one of the most medaled women
in World War II.
But, you know, if I wanted totell five years of her life, I really
(47:25):
needed to understand who wasthis woman.
And so as a result, I did sucha wide swath of research, I read
and reread her own writings.
And then I was decipheringscribbled notes in her papers.
And through all of that, I wasable to kind of really understand
exactly who she was.
(47:46):
And sometimes it wasn't until,like, subsequent readings that I
would see, oh, she's reallybeing emotional here about what she's
saying.
It would come off initially askind of matter of fact, but I would
realize later because I knewher writing so well, and I think
also just how iconoclastic she was.
She was.
Had a boy haircut in the 1920s.
(48:08):
She talked about loving,wearing suits and pants.
And then by the mid-1930s,she's living with her partner.
All of that was really brave,really daring, and contrary to the
image that a lot of people hadof her, which, if you read some of
the older articles,particularly in the 80s and stuff,
it describes her as mousy, as timid.
(48:33):
And that I really wanted tocorrect with this book because from
what I found in the evidence,she was not timid whatsoever.
There's one amazing scenewhere outside of the museum, they've
built a tower and they've puta German soldier who's trained his
rifle on them.
This is in the last daysbefore the Liberation.
And she decides that the onlything that can protect them and the
(48:57):
two guards with her in themuseum, male guards, is to open the
door and put herself in thecenter so that he sees that there's
a woman here.
You know, you don't do thatunless you have just this amazing
level of hizzpah and bravery.
Absolutely.
And good for you forcorrecting that, because the other
(49:18):
descriptors were very derogatory.
Mousy.
Now, I describe this woman as mousy.
I think that there are a lotof men that would not have done what
she did for that long of aperiod of time.
Right in the.
Yes, yes, for sure.
This is wonderful.
Michelle, I am so glad thatyou took the effort to write all
(49:39):
of this and bring Rose to lifeand really give us a perspective
on what was involved.
The Art Spy, the extraordinaryuntold tale of World War II resistance
hero Rose Vallon.
Where can people find it again?
Yes, anywhere you buy books.
Your local bookstore, Barnesand Noble, Amazon Library, and.
(50:00):
And my book tour continues ina very robust way all around the
country.
So I hope to see some of yourlisteners at some of my upcoming
events.
Wonderful.
Thank you, Michelle.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
This has been wonderful,delightful, and so intriguing and
exciting.
And I'm leaving this interviewtotally inspired for the day.
(50:22):
Thank you.
Yes, absolutely.
Thank you, Michelle.
Thank you both.
I totally agree with theAmazon description of Michelle's
book in the spirit of HiddenFigures with the sweeping narrative
of the Rape of Europa, the ArtSpy is an inspiration for us all.
An extraordinary tale ofcourage in a time of violence.
(50:43):
I highly recommend everyone goout and purchase this book by Michelle
Young.
It's extraordinary and atribute to a tremendous woman.
We hope you've enjoyed thislatest episode and if you want to
hear more episodes of WomenRoad warriors or learn more about
our show, be sure to check outwomenroadwarriors.com and don't forget
(51:04):
to subscribe to our podcast onour website.
We also have a selection ofpodcasts Just for Women.
They're a series of podcastsfrom different podcasters.
So if you're in the mood forwomen's podcasts, just click the
Power network tab onwomenroadwarriors.com Women Road
warriors is on all the majorpodcast channels like Apple, Spotify,
(51:25):
Amazon, Audible, YouTube and others.
Check us out and please followus wherever you listen to podcasts.
Thanks for listening.
You've been listening to WomenRoad warriors with Shelly Johnson
and Kathy Tucaro.
If you want to be a guest onthe show or have a topic or feedback,
(51:46):
email us@sjohnsonomenroadwarriors.com.
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